Tag: Apapa road repairs

The Lagos State Government on Sunday said the pledge by Governor Akinwunmi Ambode to repair all the inner roads damaged as a result of the construction of Jubilee Bridge, Abule-Egba, had been fulfilled.

The government pointed out that the completion of works on the popular Charity Road and other major roads in the area attested to the claim.

Ambode had, during the inauguration of the bridge in May, assured that all the adjoining roads damaged while the construction of the bridge lasted would be rehabilitated.

The government, in a statement on Sunday said the dual carriage Charity Road had been completed.

The statement said, “Aside from Charity Road, the state government has also completed the rehabilitation of Jibowu Estate Road, connecting Agbe Road to U-Turn Bus Stop on the Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway, and Pipeline Road linking Awori to Ekoro Road.”

The statement added that a resident of the area, Mrs. Abidemi Oyekunle, noted that the rehabilitation of Charity Road had brought relief to people who lived in the area and plied the route.

“Another resident, Mr. Tunde Akanbi, said there was no doubt about the appreciable progress which the area had witnessed since the coming on board of the present administration in the state.

“He said though the rehabilitation of Charity Road took longer time to complete, it was worth it judging by the quality of work done on the road,” the statement said.

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Contractors handling the rehabilitation of the Apapa/Ijora roads in Lagos are reportedly facing challenges in relocating gas pipelines and underground electric cables in the area to enable the work progress smoothly.

The relocation of the facilities came with additional costs that were not factored into the initial budget, the Managing Director, Nigerian Ports Authority, Hadiza Usman, said during a chat with journalists in Lagos.

The rehabilitation of the two-kilometre wharf-Apapa road started in July and is being handled by the NPA in collaboration with the Dangote Group and Flour Mills of Nigeria Plc.

The project estimated to cost N4.5bn, according to the managing director of the NPA has had to be re-valued to take into consideration the cost of relocating the pipelines and electric cables constituting obstruction to the work.

She said, “I was at the site some weeks ago and we observed that the gas pipelines were obstructing the work. It was agreed that the pipelines had to be relocated.

“They have moved from one stage of the job to the other and the challenge now is with the relocation of the facilities.”

Usman said she had communicated the challenge to the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, adding that the minister was looking at the bill of quantities with a view to including the cost components of the relocation in the budget.

The NPA boss said that several letters had also been written to the minister regarding budgetary provisions for all the access roads to the ports, adding, “We wanted the ministry to provide clarity on budgetary provisions for all access roads that lead to the ports.

“We had made provisions for the repair of a bridge in Cross River State that does not allow large containers to pass and other issues relating to access roads into the ports but none of these things has been done because it needs to go through budgetary process.

“We need to have the budget so that the NPA can draw from one purse and fund projects along our port access roads. That is what informed the NPA providing N1.8bn for the construction of the Wharf roads. It is not under our purview, it is not our responsibility but it got to a stage where we could not but provide the funds for the work.”

She said in a meeting held with contractors in charge of the Apapa road reconstruction that they had wanted to do a smaller road that had no drainage but she had objected.

“We said it had to be done right; if the gap is higher than N1.8bn, the NPA is willing to provide the balance to make sure the work is done properly.

“We are working with the ministry to see what can be done to ensure that these roads are reconstructed and the NPA is available to see how it can promote funding support for the execution of all port access roads.”

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The ongoing rehabilitation work on the Apapa/Wharf road is taking longer than stakeholders had envisaged due to gas pipelines along the project site, our correspondent has learnt from parties handling the job.

The Nigerian Ports Authority had in June signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Dangote Group and Flour Mills for the rehabilitation of the two kilometre road at an estimated cost of N4.3bn.

Although the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, had said that the work might take one year to complete, stakeholders argued that it did not have to take that long because of the ordeal being faced by road users along that axis.

Traffic in and out of Apapa had gone from bad to worse since the rehabilitation work commenced and one section of the road had to be closed.

The line-up of trucks going into Apapa recently stretched from Ijora to Maryland end of Ikorodu Road.

The situation had informed a recent directive by the Lagos State Governor, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode, to owners and operators of articulated vehicles/trailers and petroleum tankers to stay away from Lagos for a while.

Ambode said the traffic bottleneck had impacted negatively on the commercial activities of the state.

The Chairman, Seaport Terminal Operators of Nigeria, Dr. Vicky Haastrup, had said that if the road repairs were to last for one year, then it would be a nightmare for road users.

The President, Manufactures Association of Nigeria, Dr. Frank Jacobs, confirmed in a media briefing earlier in the week that most firms had relocated from Apapa because of the difficulty faced by workers in trying to get to their places of work.

The Managing Director, NPA, Ms. Hadiza Usman, while inspecting work done on the road, remarked that the pace of work was slower than expected.

Apart from the pipelines, it was discovered that paucity of funds had also slowed down the pace of work.

Usman added that whatever was needed to increase the pace of work would be made available to the contractors.

She said, “The level of work is unacceptable. I will meet with the Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing and the Bureau of Public Procurement to see how the pace of work on the road can be hastened.”

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